NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — Summer vacation is over, folks. There’s one more major test on the calendar, and most everyone is studying something this week. Players are avoiding naps, grinding on short game shots, practicing more than normal, etc. It’s a different kind of golf in the United Kingdom — the grass is up, the greens are slow, the weather is never certain — and it provides a late-season jolt to the PGA Tour systems.
All of which … makes for fascinating Tour watching. Here are four observations and thoughts from a week inside the ropes.
A popular sentiment ringing around through the Tour ranks these days is confusion that, while most pro sports are expanding, the PGA Tour is doing the opposite. (Lucas Glover spoke about it loudest last week.) There will be fewer Tour cards on offer in future seasons, down to 100 from 125. But I find the idea of schedule shrinking far more interesting.
There’s a more distant future where the total number of PGA Tour events could change. (And probably should!) Likely to a number less than 39 regular season events and the seven fall tourneys. (Because that’s a lot! Particularly in the eyes of investors.) But hearing how much players value the Scottish as a pre-Open pit-stop, I wonder if the Tour could really focus on a two-weeks-on, one- or two-weeks-off premier schedule. Sepp Straka and Justin Thomas were just two of the players I heard discussing the heat of the championship season as a real grind. It probably wouldn’t feel that way if you had more months like the last one, where players who need to be playing are, and those who don’t need it, can take a bit of a break. And if the hypothetical scheduling was smart, it would link up these peaks with like-minded events. Riv and Pebble. Bay Hill and Sawgrass. Houston and Augusta. With options for pros to take breaks in between. When you have Padraig Harrington skipping his title defense on the Senior tour this week, in America, because he knows he needs some sort of links golf in his run-up to Portrush, it starts to make sense. I told Xander Schauffele that and asked if he views it as similarly necessary.
“It’s a bonus that I enjoy [links golf],” he said. “Lucky to love it. But yeah, it feels like a no-brainer. I don’t know how you’d [otherwise] prepare for the task ahead. And this might even be too firm for next week, based on what I’m hearing. Playing in a certain amount of wind, aiming in certain areas and trusting the ball moving around. You can only get that over here, I feel.”
I asked Xander if, in any way, Muirfield Village serves as a similarly preparatory test right before U.S. Opens.
“You know, a little bit,” he said. “That’s actually a good point. It for sure does. It’s super penal. Shoot, Muirfield feels harder at times than the U.S. Open, depending on which venue you get.”
My flight into Edinburgh arrived just in time to get me to Renaissance Club for the final pre-tournament press conference: Rory McIlroy’s. McIlroy has led a pretty odd — that’s the only word that seems to fit — path, at least publicly, ever since his crowning Masters win. He held out on the media, then told us that he was struggling to find motivation, and at Oakmont seemed just mostly uninterested in offering much of himself to anyone.
That’s all fine, but I’m thankful it appears to be in the past. McIlroy’s presser was back to the days of old, with plenty of eloquence, sharing a New Year’s resolution and even a tasty stray shot sent at the PGA of America for some of its venue selections. He admitted to being back at ease after some time off and a change of scenery. (It’s good to be home …ish.)
On Friday afternoon, McIlroy was reminded by a reporter that, one year ago, he said that being a successful playing captain is virtually impossible. What does he think of that idea now that it’s bound to happen?
“Hopefully it is impossible,” he said with a laugh. “Keegan has played great. He’s had a great year. He had the win at the Travelers. Obviously I’m not in those conversations and from an outside perspective, it’s going to be interesting to see what the U.S. team does with that. I definitely think the U.S. team is better with Keegan playing than not playing. I definitely think he’s one of the best 12 American players right now. It’s going to be an interesting couple months to see how that all shakes out.”
Firstly, he knows how it’s likely going to shake out. (Bradley is bound to play.) But also, it’s at this point that I would like to call attention to the fact that, when Bradley was first announced as captain a year ago, Team Europe was mostly gobsmacked. They either saw Bradley as a player relegated to the captaincy instead, or a player who won’t be able to play as well as a result of being distracted by the captaincy.
At the very least, this playing-captain episode is some sort of upheaval from the norms. To win a Ryder Cup on the road, it can’t hurt the European cause. And while McIlroy may not say it on the record (at least not just yet), a few conversations I’ve had (and also maybe just common sense?) tell me Team Europe wants Bradley doing double duty. Don’t be surprised if they encourage that fate publicly in the next two months.
It’s become so common for Scottish Open contestants (and caddies) to play the course down the road — North Berwick’s West Links — during this week that it borders on cliche. But there’s another course next to it that is, in some ways, just as popular. The Wee Links, a 9-hole romp of par-3s that is so good they host a series of junior “majors” on it every summer.
On Friday night, I saw a rambunctious Trevor Immelmann grab a wedge and putter and race around it with a member of Adam Scott’s team. In years past, Jim Nantz has made time for late-night pitch-and-putt with his son, Jameson. The delightful little holes measure anywhere from 67 to 125 yards, and are flanked by benches for moms, dads and grandads to watch.
What the Wee Course represents is way more than a fun knock for Tour pros (or broadcasters) during these late Scottish evenings. It’s the stepping stone of the game, literally sharing a boundary with the big course. Flash enough skill on the Wee Course, then you can graduate to the West Links, just like the 11-year-old who challenged Joel Dahmen to a one-hole match on North Berwick’s 12th hole Thursday evening.
The youngster’s swing was long and stunning for a junior. He had crafted it with his father and sister on the Wee Links. “Oh, to be young again,” Dahmen said, shaking his head at the fluidity of his new competitor’s move. (It was Joel’s 30th hole of the day.) But 10 minutes later, Dahmen’s 4 had beaten our junior’s 5, which meant they had to settle their bet: In this case, it was pushups.
“I’d say I’ll see you when you get out on Tour,” Dahmen said as the competitors parted ways, “but I’ll be long gone by then.”
The best place on Earth to play pro golf this week is Scotland … right? Well, the best place to retain a Tour card might have been Louisville, Kent.
A tricky element of the PGA Tour’s relationship strategic partnership with the DP World Tour is how it has to prioritize the Scottish Open over the opposite field event in Kentucky, the ISCO Championship. The PGA Tour gets 75 of its best-ranked players into this 156-man field, and offers them $7,500 stipends to make the trip across the Atlantic. But not everyone wants to play in Scotland, particularly when many of them are not in next week’s Open Championship, and are now eight time zones away from their next tee time, in the middle of points-chasing season. There are only so many FedEx Cup points remaining before the end of the regular season.
A quiet (but annoying for some) element of this tournament is that, if a player qualified for the Scottish, they are not allowed to enter the ISCO. Only alternates who gain access to the Scottish (after WDs) have the option to choose if they’d like to play for less money and fewer points against a lesser field in America, or for more money and more points against the best field in the world in East Lothian. Iowa to Scotland to Nevada is less than ideal during this high-stakes part of the season, all while the Tour advances toward a future with fewer membership cards available.
Shouldn’t players be able to truly choose which tournament they play this week? I’m told the option may be available to them, but that could still be years down the road.
Anyway, this fact led to some intriguing Tour watching on Friday afternoon. Players with a spot in the Open relaxed, and maybe even visited the range for some fine-tuning. Others who aren’t major-bound seemed a lot more sullen, realizing as they began coordinating flights that they’d be ripping back across the Atlantic (and then most of America, too) for next week’s Barracuda. The other side of pro golf? It’s getting tight over there. We’ll talk a lot more about that in a week. For now, it’s off to Portrush.
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